Parents, teachers must confront the Common Core

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Ken Williams' excellent column, “Controversy and the Common Core,” has sparked many conversations with friends, family and parents that I've encountered at Back to School nights in the Placentia-Yorba Linda Unified School District [Opinion, Sept. 25]. There is a sharp division between those who are excited about Common Core and those who are seriously concerned.

What excites supporters of Common Core is the promise that children will be taught more-demanding lessons earlier and faster. Those who are concerned about Common Core question the quick introduction of pilot classes without texts or teacher training.

As a classroom teacher of 32 years, I raise this concern: Teaching our children earlier, harder and faster does not mean they will learn. In fact, ill-trained and ill-equipped teachers strike me as a recipe for disaster.

Williams' concerns about Common Core should be a message to all.

Linda Cone

Yorba Linda

A big thank-you to county school board trustee Ken Williams for his outstanding column that explained problems with Common Core.

I agree with Williams and other academic experts' conclusions about this experimental education program. It will indeed hurt our nation's children. How do I know that? Test scores in states that have already used it have plummeted. Parents and teachers have taken to the streets, denouncing it, and now other states have begun backing out of accepting Common Core.

So why is California determined to implement it in all our schools? Certainly they know by now that it did not live up to all the hype and promises of those who developed it.

Parents and educators must access information from the Internet about all the problems associated with Common Core. Then, speak out to your state elected officials and ask why they are allowing an unproven, expensive and controversial education program to be implemented in all our classrooms.

Bonnie O'Neil

Newport Beach

Welfare and poverty

The article by Hope Yen would suggest that the poverty rate would decline if only the federal government would increase the amount spent on families living below the poverty line. In fact, the exact opposite is true [“Poverty rate stuck in neutral, according to census numbers,” News, Sept. 19]. It is the largesse of the government that is at the root of the problem, as statistics demonstrate.

Avik Roy noted in Forbes earlier this month that the value of major welfare programs in pretax wage equivalent dollars in 35 states equals more than a $10-per-hour job. Benefits total $60,590 ($29.13 per hour) in Hawaii, $50,820 in Washington, D.C. ($24.33 per hour) and $50,540 in Massachusetts ($24.30 per hour). California welfare recipients receive the equivalent of $37,160 in benefits annually. Moreover, welfare benefits are tax-free.

The solution to poverty is not increased welfare but increased marriage and focus on family. Illegitimacy is the primary cause of poverty in the United States. The poverty rate for black married couples is 8.6 percent. It's troubling that only about 30 percent of black infants are born in wedlock. For the sake of comparison, the poverty rate for all married couples in 2008 was 5.9 percent. It increased to 12.8 percent in 2012 due to the recession.

Illegitimacy in America increased dramatically after the social welfare programs of the Great Society were first implemented in 1965, from 20 percent to 72 percent among black females and 12 percent to 28 percent among white females. Illegitimacy among Hispanic females is 47 percent. Seventy-one percent of children born out of wedlock are raised in poverty. The presence of a father changes the calculus. This is undeniable. He is an insurance policy against poverty.

In a recent Cato Institute report, Michael Tanner and Robert Hughes list the 126 separate federal anti-poverty programs in force today, at a cost of more than $1 trillion. These programs are a disincentive to marriage. Since 1965 a total of $15.9 trillion has been spent in social welfare programs with no apparent effect on the rate of poverty, which has stubbornly remained stuck at 15 percent. The number of people who now live in poverty, however, has been artificially increased by these programs because of the numbers of illegitimate births. Perhaps the situation will change when the public and the government finally wise up.

R. Claire Friend, M.D.

Newport Beach

Honor our veterans

at the Great Park

Has our country forgotten or ignored the history of “The Great Park?” Bill Cook's letter, “Veterans deserve a cemetery at Great Park” [Sept. 23], reminds us of the hallowed ground that the Great Park is being built on.

As a former Marine Corps pilot and Vietnam veteran, I was stationed at both Marine Corps Air Station El Toro and MCAS Tustin. I have spent the majority of my life as a South Orange County resident. This area is full of former Marines and other military personnel.

Where do our loved ones go when it's our time to have our lives celebrated, to share our memories with friends and relatives? To plan and design this park without such a memorial chapel or a military cemetery would be a slap in the face to every veteran who ever served in Orange County.

Bill Ring

Mission Viejo

To honor those who have sacrificed so much for the freedoms we enjoy, a state veterans' cemetery at the Great Park must be part of the final plan. There are areas that would be perfect for such a cemetery on the land and serve as a gift to our county, state and nation. If not here, then where? If not now, then when? We have an opportunity to pay tribute to our military. Those that agree need to make their voices heard. Those that oppose need to explain their opposition.

United in action, we can make this cemetery a reality. But if we sit and wait for others to act, we chance letting this opportunity pass us by, with no hope of ever realizing the opportunity that is before us today.

Gregg James

Laguna Niguel

The city of Irvine owes a lot to veterans, as written so eloquently in a recent letter by Bill Cook regarding the need for a military cemetery located within the confines of the Great Park. Those of us with a past military heritage and history have contributed much to the communities of this county before and after it was born.

Bill Cook's letter should be recognized by the City Council and reviewed in the total development plan of the Great Park. Paraphrasing Abraham Lincoln's words in his Gettysburg Address, “It is altogether fitting and proper to grant a final resting place for those who gave their last full measure of devotion.”

William Lewis

Irvine

May I add my voice to Bill Cook's? This is a brilliant idea, one that would be honoring the millions of Orange County veterans from Camp Pendleton, the former Tustin base and all over our county. It would be a great help for widows and families to not have to make the long trip out to the Riverside cemetery.

Would it need federal approval and financial help? Our elected officials should jump on this heartfelt suggestion and move it forward.

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